Tuesday, March 26, 2013

E-Reader Series: All about the Kindle Touch

This week I've decided to focus my articles on e-books and e-readers. Today, I'm going to talk a little about the Kindle Touch and then tomorrow, I'll have a review on the Kindle Touch. Later in the week, I'll talk about e-book readers vs. tablets and then whether I'd recommend getting an e-book reader. I hope you'll join me in this e-book adventure!

What Kindle Do I Own?

First, let's clarify which Kindle I own, since there are so many models out there now that it's been on the market so long. I have a first generation Kindle Touch, which I got for Christmas 2011. When I got it, it was $99 and now it's only $69 regular price. I have to say, I wish I'd waited! The reason for the price drop is that the Kindle Paperwhite came out . You can get the Paperwhite for only $119 with Special Offers and $139. Mine has special offers as well.

What Does It Mean to Get a Kindle with Special Offers?

Example ad shown with my Kindle locked.

If you're considering getting a Kindle, you may wonder what it means to have special offers on it, how that affects using the Kindle, and whether it's worth paying extra for one without.

In my opinion, get the one with special offers. If later you don't want them, you can always pay the extra cost and have them removed, but here's why the special offers is not a bad thing:

It never interrupts reading books. You will never have a pop-up window with a special offer. You will never see an ad at the bottom, top or side of the screen while reading books.

When do you see them? There are two times that you'll see the ads: When the Kindle is locked and when you're on the home screen searching through your library (it's a small bar at the bottom of the screen). I've never been annoyed by them.

Sometimes the ads are good deals that you would want to know about, such as a book that's on sale for only $2.99 or a buy one get one free deal. For this reason, it might be helpful to see the ads.

What Can You Do If You Don't Want to See the Special Offers on the Kindle?

Click to enlarge. Ad is on the bottom there.

Because the ads are so easy to ignore, and they don't interrupt me while I'm reading, I just don't see them as much of a bother. As I mentioned, if they do become annoying, you can always pay for them to be turned off.

Another option is to turn off the Wi-Fi. This option will also save you on battery life. Without Wi-Fi to receive the offers, you'll just shown a generic wallpaper when you lock the Kindle and as long as you don't need to download a book from the library or Amazon, you don't need Wi-Fi to be turned on. (Note: This may take some time after you turn it off for the ads to stop coming.)

Since it saves on battery life, it might be worth doing just for that reason alone. Unless you're actually searching for books on Amazon or looking at books you have saved to the cloud, you really have no reason to have it connected to Wi-Fi anyway.

Come back tomorrow to find out what I think of my Touch. I'll talk about the good and the bad. Questions? Comments? Feel free to ask below and I will answer them :).

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